Monday, December 8, 2014

Paul Bryant Jr.'s fraud-tinged fingerprints are all over the decision to eliminate UAB's football program

No one should be surprised that UAB's football program was dismantled last week--or that it was done in a deceitful fashion. After all, Paul Bryant Jr., president of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, almost certainly was involved--and Bryant has documented ties to a multimillion-dollar financial fraud.

In fact, Bloomberg Markets magazine shined a national and international light on Bryant's chicanery earlier this year in an article titled "Alabama football dominance powered by Bear Bryant son's fortune." Bloomberg went on to show that part of that fortune was built via insurance fraud. A lot of it was built from hiding dog-track profits from the IRS.

UAB President Ray Watts supposedly pulled the trigger on UAB football, but he already has been caught in multiple lies about his actions.

Here is how we described the ties of Bryant and his company to the Stewart scandal:

It's not as if serious doubt exists about Bryant's connections to fraud. . . . A ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania . . . upholds Allen W. Stewart's convictions--and proves Alabama Re's role in the case. And we quote from a pertinent section of that ruling, encompassed in footnote 11:

11. The relevant portions of the charge read as follows:
Counts 24 through 32 charge a wire fraud scheme to deceive state insurance regulators involving reinsurance. The superseding indictment alleges that in late 1992 or early 1993 the defendant devised a scheme to deceive state regulators and others regarding the true and complete reinsurance arrangements involving Summit National Life Insurance Company, its subsidiary Fidelity General Life Insurance Company, and the Alabama Reassurance Company in order to inflate their financial statements.

Bloomberg Markets picked up on our reporting in fall 2013, and reporter Anthony Effinger consulted me multiple times while conducing research for his article, which appeared in the January 2014 print issue. (See article at end of this post.)

My last communication with Effinger was on October 12, 2013. Eleven days later, I was arrested related to a defamation lawsuit filed by Republican political figure Rob Riley. Shelby County deputies entered my home, without showing a warrant or stating they had a warrant, and beat me up and maced me in the face, dragging me off to a jail, where I stayed for five months--becoming the only journalist in the western hemisphere to be arrested in 2013.

Bob Riley, Rob Riley's father, once sat on the UA Board of Trustees in his ex oficio capacity as Alabama governor, sharing power space with Bryant Jr. We have shown that Rob Riley's lawsuit bore no resemblance to a normal defamation complaint. Riley asked for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, both of which are unlawful prior restraints under First Amendment law that dates to the earlier days of our republic. Riley did not ask for a trial, although longstanding law holds that free speech issues in defamation cases are so fundamental to our democracy that such cases must be heard at trial and not via a bench proceeding. Riley also did not ask for his case to be heard by a jury, although longstanding law holds that defamation cases must be heard by a jury; to hold otherwise would allow a single judge to engage in unconstitutional censorship.

Finally, Riley asked that the case be sealed so that neither the public nor the press would know anything about it. Word quickly got out, however, that a journalist had essentially been kidnapped--and widespread coverage followed, even in The New York Times.

Clearly, Rob Riley's lawsuit was not really about defamation--it was about intimidation, and it was designed from the outset to have me arrested on bogus contempt-of-court charges. That points to ulterior motives, and given the timeline, a reasonable person might ask: Was I arrested, in part, because of my role in helping Bloomberg Markets with its investigative piece on Paul Bryant Jr.?

That question certainly has crossed my mind on multiple occasions over the past year or so. Is Paul Bryant Jr. the kind of person who would resort to such thuggery? Bloomberg Markets provides considerable insight into what drives "Bear Junior," and we will take a look at that in an upcoming post.

Meanwhile, al.com's John Archibald directly asked Ray Watts if he was hired to be UAB president as part of a deal that involved a promise to kill the university's football program. Watts used some rather unpresidential language to deny it. From the Archibald article:

It is the deception that stings. It is the way Watts and his office deflected questions, avoided students and the public and misled those around him that hurts. The only answer he gave with any fire this week was a fervent "BS" when I asked if he had been hired by the Board of Trustees to shut down the football program.

"That's BS."

But even that came across as BS. Because Watts leaves a string of gaping skeptics everywhere he goes.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Great article. Very enlightening. An older friend who lives out of town was telling me about this great journalist from Alabama, "The Legal Beagle", I had to tell him it was "The Legal Schnauzer" I got a chuckle out of his oversight. LOL.

"... In case you weren’t able to join in the festivities, Rosenthal shared some of his insights with the cop-oriented website PoliceOne.com (8/2/12), in an interview headlined “Feeding the Animals: 10 Tips for Winning With the Media After an OIS.” (OIS= Officer-Involved Shooting–imagine if you had to say that whole phrase every single time!)

The headline is a reference to Rosenthal’s advice to “feed the animals early and often”–by which he means “talking to the media.” And the article explains why you do that:

The more information they are fed after an OIS, “the less likely they’ll go foraging on their own, finding far less knowledgeable and far less credible ‘sources’ for ‘news’ that is often based on innuendo, hearsay, speculation, vengeance and biased personal opinion.”

“Foraging on their own” means journalists talking to sources (or “sources”) who aren’t the police. If you follow Rosenthal’s tips for handling the “animals,” apparently you can avoid that disastrous phenomenon altogether.

I just don't get why people are upset about the cancellation of a football "program". As I understand it a group of young men, who are paid nothing, work to make others millions and that doesn't count the betting. sounds like slavery to me. The last time I checked American history, that was outlawed some time ago.

it might also be pointed out should one of these young men no longer be able to play football because of a work related injury, no one comes to their "rescue" or pays their medical expenses, or ensures they get a decent education. They are simply disposed of. Doesn't sound like a good thing at an institution of higher learning.

perhaps with football gone, the money once spent on foot ball can be used to provide an education for students. No need to go to football games and get drunk. No need for alumni to come to the university and get drunk. Hey, may have solved some drinking problems.

Just think how much money could be diverted to education if football was eliminated from university. Don't mention some couldn't get a university education. A lot of football players don't. if university football were eliminated, people who wanted to play it professionally could go directly to the employers who pay them the really big bucks, instead of heading into slavery.

Grrrrr!!! The "Schnauzer" is back! "Teeth" are sharper than ever! Great article, thank you for your courage, perserverance and conviction in sharing this information with others. This kind of evil has to be put down for good, and I truly hope that we are well on our way to doing so and getting our beloved UAB Football team back!